Life of a Dairy Queen

Homeschool Planning

2011-07-05T14:47:00.006-04:00

Last year I planned out my school year for the most part for the whole year. Notice I said "for the most part". . . the things that didn't get planned out just didn't get done as well or as often as the things I had planned out ahead. I did the file crate system that I've read about on various blogs, the most popular of which, I believe, is By Sun and Candlelight. She goes all out with hers and takes full advantage of this system for all aspects of her life. I, on the other hand, am only using it for school.

So, I sat down at my dining room table and left all my stuff spread out so I could sit down and work on it whenever I had a small chunk of time. Here's what my dining room table looked like for weeks (there were several day stretches where I couldn't work on it - IDEALLY, I would send the kids off or take all my supplies including my printer to a

hotel and order room service for a couple of days, but you know how that goes. . . ) I actually did most of it on the evenings that the DairyKing was out planting crops and the kids were in bed.

The first thing that I did was to make labels for my folders. Instead of dating them, I numbered them. I have 2 very good reasons for this :) First of all, I can re-use the folders just like they are next year; and secondly, I am not tied to any dates. We never know when we will decide to take a week off, or a couple of days off. This way as long as I keep a pretty steady pace, I will never be behind! If we decide to take a couple of days off we can stretch our week out over 2 weeks, or decide which parts to make up and what to skip (math sheets will probably get skipped because we will be reviewing them in the next lesson anyway, grammar and spelling would just get an extra lesson thrown in for a day or two, I also have a "catch up" week or three scheduled in for good measure)

Then, I went subject by subject and did the whole year's plan for each one. I started with Bible. I pulled worksheets from the student book, printed visuals and other things I needed for each lesson, made anything I needed to make, and made a list of things I needed to gather that either wouldn't fit in the folder or that I would need to buy.

Now, I have my plan for the week written out, and everything I need in the folder. I even tore my math teacher's book apart! I didn't do that with all my teacher books though :)

I did a set of folders for each of the girls, though admittedly I didn't get all of Anna's planned out as well. It does help that she's only in Kindergarten and doesn't have as much ground to cover every day :)

Later I will show you how I organize Mary Helen's daily assignments that she does on her own.

Back to School!

2011-06-30T09:40:00.005-04:00

Well, we are back to school! One of the many things I love about homeschooling is being able to set our own schedule. We are doing sort of a year 'round schedule, and we have just begun our new year. We look forward to taking breaks along the way when the weather is nicer, or the Dairy King gets ready for a little mini-vacation. It's hot and humid in Georgia, and we might as well be doing something constructive in the air conditioning!

Mary Helen is starting second grade this year. I can't believe she's gotten so big! She has a sweet spirit, and has matured so much in the past year or so. She loves school and learning, and is enjoying the challenge of learning new things.

Anna is beginning Kindergarten. To know Anna is to love her. She has a personality that makes people smile all the time. She is our dramatic middle child for sure! When she is happy, she is squealing, giggling, dancing with delight; but when things aren't going her way, her head is drooped and it is very, very sad and just awful. She is still working on those letters and sounds, but she is showing such great improvement on them. We can see her starting to soak it all in, and we are so proud of that!

Daniel is almost 16 months old now, and he is my heart! I was so scared when I found out we were having a boy, because I just really don't know what to do with little boys! He is my little snuggler, and is always smiling. He sleeps and naps like a DREAM!

Here are a few more pictures from our first day!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

2010-08-06T21:22:00.005-04:00

We have had a very busy few weeks around here! Two weeks ago, Mary Helen was able to go to Kid University at the college in the "big city" next to us. She had SUCH a great time! There were 3 classes each day. She took Bears: Fact or Fiction, Leonardo Divinci, and What's the Buzz. It was quite exhausting getting everyone out of the house by 7:30 and then having to either stay in the city and shop or keep ourselves busy other ways, or come back home for a couple of hours to make the trip back again. I will say it was well worth it though!

Our Anna Banana turned 4 in the middle of the month, and we had a family party and we took her and one of her little friends to Monkey Joe's and out to a Japanese Steak house. Here is a picture of the birthday girl :)

The week after Kid University, Mary Helen got sick so we missed that whole week worth of school, but we finally got back to the grind last week. I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few :)

Here is a picture of the girls during our Morning Meeting time. This is my favorite part of the day! We go over our calendar, read our devotions, and do some other fun little things. It takes about 30 minutes to get through, but I would NOT change it for anything! I am planning to add more and more to it!
Anna with her letter b clothes pin cards (more goodies from Me and Marie!)

Mary Helen playing in the sensory box with Daniel haning out with her!

Mary Helen turned 6 yesterday, so I'll have some pictures of her coming up very soon!

Winner! Winner!

2010-07-16T23:02:00.001-04:00

Thanks for everyone who entered the Me and Marie giveaway! Congratulations to Joy at Home who won the giveaway! I'll be emailing you right away :)

Don't Forget to Enter My Current Giveaway!

2010-07-13T11:49:00.001-04:00

Go here to check it out! It will end this Friday :)

Love/Hate Relationship with the Library

2010-07-13T11:24:00.002-04:00

I LOVE everything our library has to offer - great selection, interlibrary loans, computers, movies, etc.

I HATE how expensive it is! I know. Your books are probably free, but mine rarely are. The Dairy King cringes when he looks at our banking stuff on line and sees how much money we give the library in overdue fines. I try to tell him that I'm just doing my part in keeping the doors open up there, and it is still cheaper than buying all those books!

Here are some things I'm doing to combat that, though. . .

First of all, I let each girl pick 5 books each, so that's an easy number to remember.

I have a rule that all library books must stay in the school room. They can go in the school room anytime to read them, but no more pulling books from between walls and beds or other random places :)

The next thing is I lay all the books out and take pictures of them so if one does go missing we can figure out which one it is, and look for it with a picture in our minds of what we're looking for!

Here is the picture of our current stash (there are 12 because I got 2 books about ants for them).

Week 2

2010-07-12T13:54:00.004-04:00

This week Anna is going to be learning about the letter D, the color green, and triangles.

Mary Helen is keeping on keeping on with her curriculum, and I'm trying to keep things interesting with the workboxes :)

Mary Helen working on fruit loop sorting:

Anna's learning space with green things words, a letter Dd poem, triangle poster, and Dd words (all of these printables came from Me and Marie Learning - be sure to enter the giveaway for Me and Marie here!)

Anna with her Doogie Dog puppet (also from Me and Marie):

Here is the sensory table. Today is the first day we pulled this out, and Mary Helen liked it just as much as Anna. The table didn't last long though, the girls got to playing and knocked it off the table. They got some good practice with their cleaning skills :) Joel plans to build a pvc frame to hold the box, but until then we will have a sensory floor! The box is filled with rice and there is a note on the top telling Anna to dig up 8 dinosaurs.

Look for more highlights through the week!

GIVEAWAY!!

2010-07-09T10:18:00.001-04:00

I just noticed that my giveaway post posted on the date that I drafted it instead of when I posted it. . . clear as mud?!

Anyways, check it out here!

Good luck!

Giveaway Alert!

2010-07-06T22:25:00.002-04:00

Me and Marie has a great Storytime Felt giveaway going on now! Go check it out!

Speaking of giveways. . . check back later this week for my first giveaway!!

Our School Room 2010-2011 year

2010-07-06T12:55:00.001-04:00

Blogger and I are not getting along well today with rearranging pictures, so here is our school room in no particular order!

I have two closets with all of our supplies in them, and on the closet doors I keep all of our morning meeting stuff. In the red pocket chart I have our alphabet exercise cards, that I believe originated on homeschoolshare, but I found them on teachmama (click to go to post). You can get them here.
I plan to add them each week as we go through the letters, and I will mix them up and have fun with them each day.

Next to that, I have a run-down of what Anna is learning for the week. I got these from meandmarie.

On the bottom part of the wall between the closets, I have our weather and birthday graphs and our 100 days of school countdown. On the top part of the wall is a chart that reminds us, "We obey all the way, right away, with a cheerful heart." Oh how I wish it were the case all the time!

This set is mostly geared to Mary Helen, our big first grader! We are counting up the days and putting the cards in place value columns, even though we haven't formally learned this concept, she should be pretty comfortable with the concept by the time we get to it. I have her coins for the daily coin count in the little orange envelopes.

If you enlarge the picture, you can see the bottom pages better - here is where we write our date on the calendar, do our tally chart, number sentence, and coin count for the day.

Here are a couple of links where I got most of my great calendar printables!

Homeschool Creations
1+1+1=1
Here is a shot of the calendar area, Mary Helen's workspace (her workboxes are on that brown shelf next to her desk), to the left of the chalkboard are our weekly Bible verses. Mary Helen's verse is from her Sparks (Awana) book (printed from homeschool creations), and Anna's is from 1+1+1=1.

Moving down a bit, the middle of the room. My work area, storage, etc.

There you see Anna's desk and workboxes, and you can see Anna in the "Listening Center" (at least it was today!).

I will try to link to all the printables I have, but if you see something you're particularly interested in, let me know!

My First Giveaway! Me and Marie Learning

2010-07-06T11:33:00.006-04:00

I have found a great site for printables for my preschooler! You may remember seeing on our morning meeting area that I have a place to put the letter, color, and shape that we are learning for the week. I got those from Me and Marie learning. I also have ordered a few other things from the talented Ashley who owns the store.

This week we have been learning about the color red and the shape circle. I ordered learning packs for each of these from Me and Marie, and all I had to do was print and cut for some learning fun! Here are some pictures of these in action. . .

Now, for the giveaway! Ashley is giving one of my readers a $10 gift certificate to her store. That will go a long way in her great store!

Here are all the ways you can get entered in to the drawing:
~go to Me and Marie Learning and decide what all you would get with your $10, and leave a comment here (mandatory)
~follow my blog
~follow the Me and Marie blog
~"like" Me and Marie on facebook

~put my button on your blog

~put Me and Marie's button on your blog (find it on her blog)

*Be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry!

**Right now on Me and Marie, there is a Saturday stock up sale - be sure to take advantage of some great deals!

The winner will be chosen at random on July 16. Please make sure there is a way to contact you either by your profile or providing an email address in the comments section. Good luck!

I am not receiving any compensation for this review or giveaway. I love these products, and contacted Me and Marie Learning about hosting this giveaway. All opinions are mine.

Back to School today!

2010-07-05T12:49:00.002-04:00

We started our school year today. We took quite a while off when Daniel was born, but we had finished up with Mary Helen's kindergarten curriculum in time. Here are some pictures for us to remember their first day of school this year. Later this week I'll have some pictures of our school room and some highlight of things we're doing this week.

up to our ears in corn!

2010-06-28T17:15:00.003-04:00

I decided to put up some corn this year. I've never attempted to do it before, but I ended up creaming nearly 200 ears of corn. We will enjoy delicious creamed corn all year long!

Here is Mary Helen enjoying an ice cream sundae that Joel brought his hard workin' girls :)

We found a couple of worms that the girls thought were fascinating!

Being silly. . .

Daniel is 3 months already!!

2010-06-08T10:56:00.003-04:00

Time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it?! I can't believe Daniel is 3 months old already. He is such a joy to our lives, and I can't imagine how it was before he was here (okay, so may be I can fantasize about those nights that I got 8 straight hours. . . ).

Daniel seems to be so much stronger than I remember the girls being at the same ages. Even at a day or two old, he was lifting his head off my chest to look at me(*swoon*). He is already enjoying his exersaucer and johnny jumper. He loves to "talk" to us and I think he is going to be a people person!

At his 2 month check up, he was 75th percentile in all 3 categories (height, weight, and head circumference), so I suppose Joel and I are averaging him out somewhere in there :)

Daniel's sisters are crazy about him, and Mary Helen especially wants to hold him every morning when she wakes up. She loves to be a little mommy until he starts to cry, then she's ready to pass him on! Mary Helen rides next to him in the back seat of the car, and she keeps him happy by talking to him, making his car seat toy make noise, and reading books to him. The other day she wanted to help Joel out on the farm, and I secretly didn't want to let her because she is so good at keeping him entertained!

Anna likes to talk and play with him as long as he is happy as well. When he starts to cry, she gets a couple of notches louder than him to let me know that, "He's too WOUD!!!"

Vacation Bible School Time!

2010-06-08T10:48:00.003-04:00

This year our church's VBS theme is Saddle Ridge Ranch. The girls were very much in the spirit of things this morning, and I got some cute (in my not so humble mommy opinion!) pictures of them this morning before they left!

Mary Helen pulled out their little stick horse for the photo-op :)

The girls are both so excited to have Grandma helping out at VBS this year (and mommy is so excited that grandma is playing taxi this week and I get to stay in my pajamas and wave them off for a few hours!).

Beach Week 2010

2010-06-06T22:18:00.005-04:00

Every year, Joel's family goes to the beach. The only year that it hasn't happened since Joel and I have been married is the year that his sister got married. The first year I went along, just a couple of months after we were married, we all stayed in a condo. There were 10 adults on that trip - Joel's parents, his 3 siblings, 2 in-laws and his sisters boyfriend (who is now part of our family). The next year, we stayed in the same condo, with the same number of adults, only then 2 of us were pregnant. Very pregnant. This year, only 7 years after my first trip, there were 10 adults and 9 kids! Mary Helen is the oldest of those nine, and Daniel is the youngest (by just 3 weeks) of those. This year, Joel's brother and his family left the day we came so we weren't all there at the same time. Instead of a condo, however, his parents got a GREAT house where there were nooks and crannies for pack and plays and sleeping bags. It was a great time! Here are a few pictures from our time. . .

Daniel's first dip in the pool. . . I think he liked it :)

Daddy's big girl headed to the beach down (greased down with the sunblock!)

Mary Helen was reading bedtime stories to her cousins.

Joel and Daniel with Joel's dad.

Cousins. . .

Anna was giving her uncle a new hair do - curling iron, straightener, the works :)

Doll Review

2010-05-25T15:54:00.003-04:00

Recently, I was asked to test a product for ebeanstalk. I'm not allowed to talk about it because it's not out on the market yet; but they sent me a toy as a thank you for testing the product for them. The product was for baby Daniel, so the toy was to be an age-appropriate toy for him.

Here's what they sent us (modeled by my beautiful oldest daughter)

It's a plush baby doll. It'd have been nice for it to have atleast been blue for our little fella, but we do have some people in our house who like pink :)

He's not old enough to play with any toys other than looking at things that are hanging over him and he's beginning to swat at things. However, here's what I think about the doll from what I can tell. . .

~I really like having toys that don't have a lot of bells and whistles. This one certainly doesn't have any. That's a good thing for using our imaginations, which is a very important skill in my opion!

~I like that it's plush, so it can be one of the first toys that Daniel plays with.

~While this was sent as age appropriate for our baby, our big girls have adopted her into their family of babies and she has enjoyed the stroller rides up and down our street!

~I probably would not have bought this for Daniel (being pink and all as well as having a supply of babies here already!), but our family is taking good care of her and enjoying her!

Ebeanstalk is a toy website dedicated to selecting the best toys by age and kids toys. The in-home feedback of bloggers and moms like me around the country help to make sure ebeanstalk continues to provide the best educational toys for your child. Check it out for yourself!

disclaimer: I was given this doll in exchange for product testing and for agreeing to review it on my blog. All opions are mine. I recieved no other compensation for this review.

Baking Time

2010-05-24T19:54:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, Mary Helen had a playdate, so Anna and I decided to do some baking together. We made a most delicious recipe. Yellow Cake Mix with a tub of chocolate frosting :) Here are a couple of pictures of my little helper.

Fun in the Sun!

2010-05-15T14:48:00.003-04:00

We pulled out the kiddie pool the other day. I think it's time for an upgrade :) They had fun just getting wet though!

Pre Planning Days!

2010-05-10T20:27:00.003-04:00

I love planning for school. It seems so ideal all the wonderful things we will accomplish this year. My children will sit perfectly still taking in all their lessons, then joyfully completing the day's work. There will be no whining, no stalling, no back talking. . . My children will graciously thank me at the end of each day for my creativity and fun in lesson planning. Mary Helen will win the National Spelling Bee at age 6.

Well, I can dream, right?

I do hope that we have a fun year with lots of learning. I don't really care if I don't have the smartest kids on the block, but I want them to have a good education!

I am following some of the things I learned in The Well Trained Mind book. Science will follow the model set out in the book, but I am putting together my own stuff (actually I'm mostly following exactly what another homeschool mom did and emailed me, but I'm adding and subtracting to suit us).

I'm also following the WTM's recommendations for History, and using Story of the World.

Reading will be taught using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading; for grammar, we will use First Language Lessons.

I'm considering getting Handwriting Without Tears.

For math, I've decided to give Saxon math a try this year.

I look forward to sharing our fun science topics we are going to cover this year!

What Else We've Been Up To. . . . (in pictures - lots of them!)

2010-05-06T08:17:00.005-04:00

In no particular order :)

My grandpa turned 90 last week, and here are a few pictures from his party. There were 5 generations represented there!

Here is a picture of the birthday boy, and one of his cake. It looks like his business card and reads, "Preacher by profession, Craftsman by trade, Fisherman by choice." He is a neat man, and we are grateful to have had him for a grandpa. He gave his "last sermon" to all of us that afternoon, and he said something that he's been telling us for years - a Chinese proverb "Die young, as late as you can" and a poem that he wrote to go along with it. I can't remember word-for-word, but the gist is to be nice to that old man that you'll be someday, for his aches and woes depend on things you do today. He talked so sweetly about his bride who was not there for his birthday, the first he's celebrated without her in over 60 years. I hope that Joel and I are still that in love after 60 years.

We took a cruise. . . or atleast played on a structure that looks like Noah's ark :)

fed turtles

made Daniel mad a few times. . .

rode on our cousin's horses. . .

Here is a picture of my grandpa, mom, me, and my kids. . .

Daddy with his boy. . .

my dad's side of the family with my mom

and a few more from the hospital when Daniel was born. . .

Tap, Tap, Tap. . . Is This Thing On?

2010-05-05T18:04:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been almost a whole year since I last blogged. SO much has happened. It has been a sad year for us. First, my dad and stepmom got a divorce after about 12 years of marriage. It has been tough on our family. Then, in September, my grandmother died - she was the first of my 4 grandparents that I have lost, the other 3 are still living, and they all live in my small town. Later, in January, Joel's grandmother died - his last living grandparent. Both of our grandmothers led full lives, and made the most of their lives on our Earth. Both left amazing legacies behind.

BUT, we had something very amazing happen. . . his name is Daniel, and he has the hearts of all of us. Here is our first family picture.

and a few others. . .

so. . . we have been busy around here, but I am looking forward to getting back to blogging! I have missed it! It's so fun to look back and see the things we've done, and I want to keep it up for our kids to have to see some of our memories!

We will start back to school on July 5th. I have had fun making plans for this year. I can't believe Mary Helen will be in first grade already! Anna will be doing Pre K fun stuff. Daniel will hopefully be very cooperative to our homeschooling efforts!

In the coming days, I'll be sharing some pictures from the last 2 months since Daniel has been born, and sharing some of our homeschool plans.

I'm not so good at this blog thing

2009-11-05T16:12:00.002-05:00

LOL~We have had a crazy-busy week! It's been good though, Mary Helen got to spend the night last night with my grandparents and Anna got to go to work with Joel for a few hours last night. We have done our school, but nothing too much extra. I am trying to get back in the swing of things to get those workboxes done. . .

I am going to sit down this weekend (hopefully) and re-vamp our schedule a bit. I think chores at 7:30 in the morning is just impractical for us all. Luckily, we do have some free time to play with so it shouldn't be too hard to revamp.

Anna is not doing so well with the potty training. We have a couple of good days then a bad week. She comes home in her extra clothes pretty much every day from Bible Play School. I am planning to get an appointment with her pediatrician to make sure there is no medical reason for her having problems (UTI or something?).

Hooked on Phonics: My Feelings

2009-10-30T08:22:00.002-04:00

Someone asked in the comments how I like Hooked on Phonics. I have only been doing it with Mary Helen (Kindergarten) for a couple of weeks, but so far I am in love. I'm resisting the urge to order 1st grade :). I think Mary Helen likes the woman on the cd telling her what to do rather than listening to me (she hears me enough in a day!).

I like the repetition. I think that's great for learning to read as well as building confidence. She has read 3 of the little books that come along with it, and I think 3 or 4 of the little books printed in the workbook. There is an adorable little chart that came in our kit where she puts a sticker for each story she reads - she LOVES that!

The workbook has the student circle words in various activity (circle all the words that rhyme with mat), but I am planning to use this program for all the kids and then pass it along (if there's any life left in it!); so we write the words on the chalkboard or paper. This is fine with her and saves the book.

Feel free to ask me again after Christmas how it's going and I'll give another update then :)

Have a great weekend everyone! I have a hot date with the Dairy King and the girls are spending the night with MeMa! Tomorrow morning some girlfriends and I are headed to yard sales! I should be ready to crash by the time we make it through Trunk-R-Treat at church tomorrow night.

Workboxes or No Workboxes. . . that is the question!

2009-10-28T22:24:00.002-04:00

Well, one reason I felt like I had nothing to blog about is that we quit doing workboxes. I was after survival and basics. So, we've been doing math and reading. Nothing extra.

Lately, Mary Helen has been asking for more and more, and I've been pulling out extra activities and keeping her busy. Today I asked if she missed having workboxes, and sure enough she does! So, I'm back at it. Now I have to remember all the ideas I had for the boxes and get organized again!

The Snails Trail has a great post on sight words activities, and I'm working some of those into our boxes. I'm hoping to find more good ideas soon :)

Today I wasn't feeling all that great and the day just got worse and worse, so we were back to survival, but I hope to get on top of things and will start posting more about what's in our boxes next week.

Oh! I almost forgot - we got over a BIG hurdle last week - Mary Helen learned all the days of the week finally!! We have been struggling with it, and it finally clicked :) Proud Mommy moment!

Another praise - Anna wore big girl panties all day and only had one accident! Yay!!

Welcome to our school room!

2009-10-26T13:42:00.004-04:00

I recently turned part of our playroom into the schoolroom. We used to have the set up in the kitchen, but I really wanted my kitchen back. I already was using the closets in the playroom for school stuff, and I just really like to change things up!

When we started homeschooling last August (2008), I set up the kitchen into a nice little school corner. I wanted to paint a chalkboard on the wall, but Joel didn't think that'd be a good idea. His question was about painting over it being difficult or something. Well, hello, honey. . . we are going to homeschool forever, I don't think the need for a chalkboard will be changing. But, we did it his way and painting a thin board with chalkboard paint and nailed it up with a pretty little fram made from moulding. Well, I decided when it was time to move school that he is probably the smartest man I know! We just took that sucker down and moved it to the next room - and isn't she lovely?!

This is an overview shot of the school area. To the right is the playroom area - couch, rocking chair, tv, computer, treadmill and floor space for playing.

The table was given to us (free!!!) when some friends of ours moved and no longer needed it. Thanks to facebook, I posted on there that I was looking for a very cheap to free table, and with in 10 minutes I had this one offered to me!
This is behind where I was standing to take the first picture. I have some family pictures, a curtain rod to hang artwork, and these bins that hold everything! We store crayons, markers, stickers, coloring books, construction paper, and other art stuff. The other one has some of our learning games like the leap frog letter games, playful patterns, nuts and bolts, wipe off placemats, etc. The picnic table is for playdoh, art projects, etc.

One of the closet doors - we have our current sight word in the top red pocket chart, and ones we've learned on the wall to the left. Colors and days of the week are on the bottom.

The next picture shows the wall between the closets with our very fashionable princess clock, our schedule, and our baskets for our chore packs (I will have a whole post about those soon!). The canvas drawers have various supplies - pencils, pens, readers that we aren't ready for. . . The pocket chart has the activity that each girl does during alone play time. I separate them for 30 minutes in the afternoon to do an activity on their own. The girls really look forward to this time of day!

And, the chalkboard area - the papers on the left are each of the girls' AWANA verses. I have our cd player down there - we listen to Mary Helen's Sparks lesson on there and her Hooked on Phonics lesson. We also play praise music during other times of the day. Mary Helen loves to listen to "Mommy music about God" :)

This shelf is between the kitchen and play/schoolroom. The green baskets (from the dollar tree) are for free reading (they each have 30 minutes a day of reading time, and I rotate these baskets - the missing one is by the recliner in the living room). The purple baskets hold daily school stuff - Mary Helen's math and reading workbooks, and her finished worksheets. The bottom basket has magnetic paper dolls, a magnetic tea set princess party book, and a wooden doll book that you dress the doll (one of Anna's weekly activities during alone time).

Here is Mary Helen doing her Hooked on Phonics lesson.

And Anna doing her coloring sheet during school time.
Thanks for taking the tour! If you have pictures of your school area, please put a link in the comments, I LOVE to get good ideas for school areas!

Hello, world! Remember me?

2009-10-24T23:53:00.002-04:00

Two and a half months or so have passed since I have blogged! Shame on me!

Well, I have missed the blogging world. I have not blogged, and I have not been following blogs as closely as I like to. But, I am coming back. You may not have missed me, but dear friends, I have missed you!

So, in the next few posts, you can look to hear all about my pregnancy so far (over half way there!), our school year and the dramatic changes I've made in the last couple of months, see my new school set-up, find out why we decided to put Anna in our church's Bible Play School, how I talked Joel into a cleaning lady :), what God has been teaching me, and other stuff that's been going on around here!

Super Summer Swap Linky

2009-08-06T19:14:00.002-04:00

Head over to Superheroes and Princesses to link up your post about the swap and to check out all the great thing other folks swapped! Can't wait to see all the goodies that got swapped!

School Time!

2009-08-05T22:31:00.003-04:00

I forgot to take any pictures the first day, so here are a few from day 2!

The first is Anna doing a Brown Bear heads and tails puzzle. You can get it and some other great Brown Bear Brown Bear tot book stuff here. Check back later in the week and I'll have a picture of our little tot book that we're putting together.

Here is Mary Helen working on her DrawWriteNow assignment. We learned a bit more about frogs this week, and she did the frog habitat in her book. I love matching her writing assignment to our themes when possible :)

This is Mary Helen's mini office. I put everything on it with sticky tack and it's a foam board that I got at walmart. I wanted something portable, but that I could change around when we didn't need something on there. . . I hope it will be very versatile! We bring them to the kitchen table to talk about the day and the weather and cover a couple of other skills (MH is working on counting to 100, recognizing numbers - I'll call out random numbers for her to circle - and skip counting). Then I put each girl's board on top of their workbox shelf.

Finally, here is Anna with her mini-office. They love using their wipe off markers on the different things in their mini office. So fun!

Today was Mary Helen's fifth birthday and we took the day off at the last minute to go to a movie with one of her friends. I had called to chat with my friend, and she and her daughter were on the way to the movie and invited us, so I figured why not?! I don't intend to drop school at the drop of a hat, but occasionally it's a nice treat! We came home just in time for a good nap before a family dinner to celebrate her birthday again!

Back to the grindstone!

2009-08-03T11:47:00.002-04:00

We are very happy to be back doing school! I never would have imagined that I/we would thrive on routine, but we do!! I was up early, had coffee and quiet time, fixed breakfast, and we did a couple hours of school.

My camera is dead, but I'll take some pictures of our day tomorrow.

I am thankfully feeling MUCH better, and have a fair amount of energy. I was needing it! Joel has been so great keeping the kitchen stocked and cooking for us - we would not have survived if he hadn't stepped up and been so great :)

This past weekend was the homeschool convention, and it really boosted me up and got me ready to tackle another year, so that's always a bonus!

I'll hopefully be a much better blogger now that we're back on track! Hope all of you homeschool moms are getting ready for a great year!

You know you're a homeschool mom when. . .

2009-07-22T20:32:00.003-04:00

They're pond critters. We have tadpoles, water beetles, pond skaters, crawfish, and may be something else??

They had critter night for the preschoolers at church last Sunday night, and since the man doing the presentation is good friends with Joel, and knew we were wanting some tadpoles, he gave us all of these! The crawfish are disgusting looking, but I'm really excited to have something interesting to watch. Now, let's just hope we can keep them alive and see the tadpoles turn to frogs!

Land of the Living

2009-07-18T14:24:00.002-04:00

Well, I think I'm coming back, y'all! My body is imprinted on the love seat and I've slept through about 150 I Love Raymond reruns. I'v watched entirely more Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy than I'd like to admit, and I haven't done anything around my house.

So, while I'm back to life I think, I am spending my spurts of energy today cleaning house and doing laundry.

Next week I'm off with the little girls to meat all the other women and children in Joel's family for camp meeting. I'm hoping I'm not too naseaus to enjoy the cabin/tent that my mother-in-law has been working hard to restore to living conditions so we can all spend the night up there. Joel and his siblings and cousins used to go up there every summer, but in the last 15-20 years the place has just been opened up enough so that the family can keep it (you lose it if you don't open it up every other year or so).

Well, for the past few years some of us have gone and stayed in hotels or houses in the area during camp meeting, choosing air conditioned locations because of young children. But, this year the cabin has upgraded kitchen stuff, newer matresses (family hand-me-downs), newer furniture (our hand-me-downs), and a new window (for more air circulation). We started making all the plans as we were leaving from camp meeting last year, and over the past 12 months, Joel's mom has been busy seeing that things get done around there.

What we didn't anticipate was that Joel's sister and I both would be pregnant (me 8 weeks, and her 9/10 weeks). Hopefully we don't morning sickness everyone out of there!

So, when I get back and recover, I'll be getting ready for the homeschool convention. We will start school on August 3, and I hope to be a much better blogger then! I hope I don't loose any readers in the mean time!

Hope you all have a great week - I'll put pictures of our adventure up when we return!

When Life Happens

2009-07-13T14:04:00.002-04:00

So, I've been making big plans for our homeschool year. All these wonderful themes and such for us to do. And now, I'm pregnant. And Tired. And Miserable. So I'm not making big plans.

I will still educate my children, but I am going to let myself off the hook for doing a lot of extras. When I have the energy for extras, I'll do them, but we might get by with the basics.

Anyone else have to scale back their plans when life intrudes on the ideal?

No Tutorial Today. . .

2009-07-07T20:21:00.002-04:00

I plan to do a tutorial of my binder cover, but I'm very, very tired. That's what pregnancy does to you. Yep, that's right! We're PREGNANT!!

I am just 6 weeks along, with a due date of February 27. . . hopefully, I will be back to blogging regulary soon, but for now I'm trying to keep my head above water!

To Tell You What's in My Binder. . .

2009-07-02T14:53:00.002-04:00

Okay, there is nothing magical about the binder, but I love it! Here is a tab-by-tab description of what is in mine:

~ Calendar - I printed monthly sheets from www.donnayoung.org I try to write everything down so each morning I can take a look at today and the next few days.

~Schedule - I have a copy of my daily schedule so I know what I'm supposed to be doing. I've made one for school days, and I'm trying to decide if I want make one for non-school days, or just wing it. Probably, I will just wing it since we are going to do school 4 days a week instead of just 3 like last year.

~Homeschool Plans - I have sheets for my unit plans with ideas, goals, and other notes. I also have my workbox planning forms in this section.

~Grocery List/Menu Planse - I have a table type form with sections of the grocery store - produce, frozen, paper products, etc. I currently have a 3 week rotating menu. On the fourth week I either start over or try to clean out the pantry and freezer of things that I've purchased but haven't eaten for whatever reason.

~Homeschool Misc. - I keep little tidbits here like things I would like to have in our art center, or great ideas I print off that I want to remember for later.

~Telephone/Address - Currently, there is only my Homeschool Co-Op group's contact information. I plan to put my Christmas list in here too.

~Travel - Places we want to go, ideas for keeping the kids entertained, sample packing lists, etc.

~A tab for each of my girls - yearly homeschool goals (for my kindergartner this has things like learn 200 sight words, count to 100 by ones, twos, fives, and tens; it also has things like learn to load the dishwasher, learn to tie shoes, learn to think of others before herself) I have a similar list for my 3 year old.

~Craft tab - things I want to make or sew, handy tips I read on the internet, etc.

Other tabs you may have:
~Ministry (I had one of these last year when I was facilitator for a women's mission group at our church)
~Household chores
~Loan/Borrow list - what you've loaned to someone or things you've borrowed so you can remember who has it or who it belongs to
~Gift Registry - who you need to shop for, gift ideas, sizes, etc.

So, what's in your binder? I might be missing something life-changing!!

~

Do You Have a Home Management Binder?

2009-07-01T15:00:00.003-04:00

div>I do. I plan to utilize it more for our homeschool plans, grocery lists, and menus. But, I like to do planning at the library sans the kiddos on my afternoon "off", and a big, bulky binder just gets in the way. So, today, I fixed it.

Here is my boring, run-of-the-mill binder.

Here is my new, fabulous binder that I can carry on my shoulder like a pocket book!

It was VERY easy to make, I made it start to finish in about an hour and a half, including phone calls and a pull up change :). I like pretty organized!

Art Center

2009-06-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

In my continued efforts of organization (HA!), I have created an art center for my girls.

I was blessed with this shelf of bins by a friend whose son had outgrown it!

So, here's what we've got so far (top to bottom, left to right)

~a bucket of magnetic letters (this has sense been moved, and we will fill that box with something else later)

~scissors and glue

~markers

~crayons

~tissue paper

~stickers

~paint (only water colors and dot painters, tempera type paint is still in the closet)

~coloring books, workbooks, and activity sheets

~scrap paper

~things to cut for collage (alphabet letters and things I've printed but not used as well as old magazines)

~blank drawing paper and construction paper

I plan to add a box of misc. art supplies such as toilet paper tubes, pom-poms, craft sticks, etc. I've had this set up for about a week or so, and my oldest daughter especially has enjoyed it. I let them take crayons and markers to the playroom to work on their trays, but glue and paint have to stay at the kitchen table.

Do you have something similar to this in your house?

What Could be Better than Goodwill?

2009-06-29T09:48:00.003-04:00

I'm so glad you asked! It's free of course! Look at what I was blessed with this weekend. . .

Leap Frog word whammer with 3 letter words (never opened!), 3 Discovery toys, an opposite puzzle, and two workbooks. She also gave us almost a whole set of Hooked on Phonics (she kept the books for her son to keep reading, but it looks very usable without them), several computer games, and some princess dress up stuff!

What a blessing for all this to add to our homeschool closet!

Going to Convention Again!

2009-06-27T16:38:00.002-04:00

You may remember that I went to convention back in May. Well, to be honest, it was a disappointment compared to my experience last year. SO...I've been saving my pennies, and I'm going again! This time I am looking forward to all of the speakers and encouragement to kick off the year the week I return!

This year, thanks to my friend, Momma Snail, I made business cards. I am printing the front with my blog header and the back with all my personal information. I will use them to enter drawings they may have, or if I meet someone new who I'd like to share information with.

Go check out Momma Snail's great post about convention survival!

Goodwill Goodies!

2009-06-26T08:19:00.004-04:00

I was able to go to goodwill yesterday and look through all their books. I was so excited with all of my finds, I just had to show you all!

I got several workbooks, most of which had no writing in them. I got two math books in PERFECT shape, and one even has a companion cd rom!

I got a few story books, I got a nature activity book and a nature dictionary that Daisy (my older daughter) will love! So many goodies! You can click on the picture to enlarge and see them all. . .

I'll be showing some more fun stuff I've gotten this week over the next few days - I am getting ready for school to start!!

Can't Get Enough Swapping?

2009-06-24T18:49:00.003-04:00

Here's one for the moms! I did this last year, and I loved it! Head over to Kelly's blog to find out more!

Swap now closed

2009-06-24T18:37:00.002-04:00

Thanks to everyone who has joined! We have had an overwhelming response! Now we have to match everyone up, so please be patient as we get your partners together. . . my little brain hurts already! We will email you all when we get matches made. I hope you are all thinking about what you're going to send - I can't wait to see what everyone does!

Very Important Swap Announcement!!

2009-06-22T22:05:00.001-04:00

If you have signed up for the swap, but have not received a confirmation email from us, please email me at dairyqueen03@gmail.com. I either don't have enough information to sign you up, or I may have overlooked your email. Please let me know ASAP - with over 100 participants, I don't want to miss anyone! Thanks!

Workbox planning form

2009-06-22T07:40:00.004-04:00

If you have signed up for the Super Summer Swap, but have not received an email from me confirming, please email me so I can make sure you're on the list! Thanks!

I wanted to show you the form I came up with over the weekend for our workbox plans. I don't know how to make the whole form pull up here, so I just took a screenshot of it for you. If you want one of your own, it is very easy to make. I used microsoft word and just inserted a table with 13 rows and 5 columns.

We are going to do school 4 days a week, and I put a category for each box.

My 5 year old Kindergartener will have the following boxes:
Math (we are using Horizon Math, so this will just be the daily lesson)
Writing (3 days will be Draw Write Now, I divide each lesson into 3 days; and the other day will be a letter writing day)
Reading (these will be easy readers, such as Bob books)
Phonics/Sight words (we will switch between the two)
Journal
Sign Language
Theme reading
Theme craft or Art
Theme lapbook elements
For fun!
Cleaning Job (this will be an extra daily chore such as dusting, putting away laundry or wiping down the bathroom sink. Sometimes I will throw something in ther like making instant pudding or lemonade)
Misc - for whatever I want her to do!

2 Year Old Preschool Boxes are:
Fine Motor
Shapes and Colors
Journal
Theme Reading
Theme craft or art
Sign Language
Lapbook
Alphabet
Sensory
For Fun!
Cleaning Job
Misc.
I plan to plan out each week on the weekend so that I don't spend forever each night plundering through deciding what to pull out for the next day.

Do you have a formula for planning? I'd love to hear it!

Have you signed up yet??

2009-06-21T20:36:00.002-04:00

Things are in full force for the Super Summer Swap, but TOMORROW is the LAST DAY to sign up! We have over 100 kids signed up from almost half of the states and at least 5 different countries! Don't miss out on the fun! Sign up today!

Preschoolers are welcome to join us, as are families who do not blog. Please pass the word and sign up through tomorrow!

Fun Giveaway Alert!

2009-06-19T15:57:00.002-04:00

Susana at Our Homeschool Fun is having a Funky Artist Tote giveway. Run over there to check it out, and look around while you're there - her homeschool does look FUN!

Quick Book Reviews

2009-06-19T09:13:00.003-04:00

Don't forget to sign up for our Super Summer Swap!

Remember when I was going on vacation and I had all those books that I was planning to read? Well, I still haven't finished them all!

I do want to tell you about the Mangers of Their Homes book and a devotion book that I read, both my Steve and Teri Maxwell of http://www.titus2.com/.

I borrowed Managers of Their Homes (MOTH) from a homeschooling friend, because my post-convention budget had no room for anything else last month! So, I read it pretty quickly so I could get it back to her. I will definitely be purchasing my own copy of this book! It is SUCH an encouragement to me!

The main idea in the book is making a schedule for your family. She recommends 30 minute slots, and schedules her whole day. While it seems radical and rigid, you can see so much good in it once you read everything she has to say. There is scheduled free time, but being a homeschool family, free time is first filled with things that don't get done during the scheduled time (for all those dawdlers!).

She realizes that life happens, and she addresses that beautifully in her book.

Here's a biggie for me - I LOVE the computer! I love blogging - doing mine and reading others (LOTS of others!). I love all the wonderful homeschool ideas on the web. I love email. I love facebook. It just all adds up to A LOT of TIME!! So, I sat down and started writing down all the things that I wanted and needed to accomplish every day and week. I scheduled some time on the computer in the morning, about 15 minutes around lunchtime, but that's it. When I wrote everything down, I had time left over! I had homeschool time, planning time, cleaning time, cooking time, eating time, laundry time. . . lots of chores that "I don't have time for". When I put it all down on paper, I realized how much time I waste each day!

So, as part of my homeschool planning, I will be tweeking what I've already written down as our schedule, and I will beging training my family and myself to have more productive, fun days!

Having a schedule for us is like having workboxes - it makes you realize that you CAN do the fun stuff in life!

The other book I read by them is called Just Around the Corner. It is encouragement for homeschool families. They have a Mom's corner and a Dad's corner. I only read the Mom's Corner. I can't tell you how encouraging and challenging these articles were to me! I think when the Maxwells come to my area this fall, I will be purchasing the second book of devotions!

I won't tell you much about what's in the book, but I will tell you about one day that really spoke to me. It's about revering our husbands. When I began reading, I thought to myself - I don't have a problem with that. I respect my husband! (Can you see me puffing up?!) So, as I continued to read on, she stated that revering our husbands is much deeper than respecting our husbands.

Here are some questions I wrote in my journal to myself.
~Do I nag my husband?
~Do I try to manipulate him to do thing my way?
~When he suggests something, do I often have a "better" way?
~Do I truly trust all of his decisions? (he is responsible to the Lord in his decisions, not to me)
~Will I be more concerned with following the Lord and His Word to me as a wife than I am about having things go my way?

One more thing, I know that my husband loves the Lord, so I can trust what Romans 8:28 says. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love Go, to them that are called according to His purpose." I have to remember that God may be showing him something that He is not showing me. I have to learn to put my trust in the Lord, and thus in my husband.

Whew! How's that for deep thinking on a Friday?! I would really encourage you to check out the Maxwell's ministry at http://www.titus2.com/.

These are my opinions on this material. I was not asked by the Maxwells to review their materials. I recieved no compensation for this review.

Keeping them entertained on the road...

2009-06-18T11:25:00.007-04:00

We took a vacation to the beach recently. It was about at 4-5 hour drive. I wanted to keep the girls entertained both in the car, and at the condo. Here are the packets that I packed up for them.

This is Daisy's box...it contains a Dora drawing story book, crayola color wonder pad and markers, mazes from a book that I laminated for re-use, wet erase markers, a notepad, and two coloring books with crayons.

Petunia's box included a few coloring books, notepad, wipe off letter writing activity, colorwonder set, and mini-erasers.

I also tossed in a few snacks.

Here are pictures of each of the girls before we got on the road...

Another thing we did was have a scavenger hunt and roadside Bing-o. I printed them off of http://www.momsminivan.com/ and laminated them. I had a few prizes for completing the games (they were both winners) such as gummy worms (a family favorite) and swim rings from the dollar store.

Here is Daisy looking for scavenger hunt items.

Here is Petunia working with our babysitter on her scavenger hunt. The babysitters was a real key in keeping the girls entertained on the road and once we got to the beach!

**Don't forget to check out the Super Summer Swap! All the details are here.

For more on-the-go tips, check out ABC&123's Table Talk!

Super Summer Swap gets a button!

2009-06-17T23:27:00.001-04:00

Be sure to grab our button and add it to your blog! We're having a great turn out - keep 'em coming!!

Life as I know it

2009-06-16T08:57:00.004-04:00

Reminder! Don't forget to check out the Super Summer Swap!

Whew! It's been a whirlwind few weeks around here! It's pretty sad I was better about posting while I was on vacation (love that post scheduler!) than since I've been home!

Last week, our church hosted Vacation Bible School, and I was exhausted every afternoon, and had trouble keeping up with the things that HAD to be done! We had planned to get back to school this week, but Daisy is going to another VBS this week, so we are having lazy days. Besides, I am still planning our pond unit (almost there), and I'm planning Petunia's third birthday party!

I wanted to share a few pictures of our last few weeks with y'all though...

Fun News! We're Having a Swap!

2009-06-14T23:55:00.006-04:00

Another note - please let us know when you sign up if you'd be willing to have an international swap partner. Thanks!

Edited to add ~ if you sign up for the swap, we will send you an email confirming that we have you signed up! If you do not get an email from us within a day, please email me again :)

Have you been waiting anxiously for the big announcement from Christy from Superheroes and Princess and me? The wait is over. We are so excited to announce our plans to co-host the Super Summer Swap!

What is the Super Summer Swap you ask? It is a fun way for our children to make some friends this summer. The participants will put together little packages to exchange with other children of similar age.

Why should your child participate?
1. What child wouldn't like to get some mail?
2. It will be a fun summer project.
3. Your child can learn a little bit about another child from another state.
4. Pen pals are always a possibility if the children want to continue the friendship.
5. Why not?

So, here is how it works:
1. It is open to all children of bloggers through elementary age.
2. Sign up between June 15 and June 22.
3. We will match children based on age and partners will be notified by June 26.
4. All packages should be mailed by August 3.
5. When you receive your package, write a post about it and we will have a Mr. Linky party after the packages all have time to arrive!

Packages should include a minimum of three items from your child; here are some examples: 1.
A postcard or brochure from where you live, 2. a lapbook or scrapbook or something handmade, 3. a photograph or drawing of your child, 4. a special gift that will allow your child's new friend to experience a hobby or interest that your child has or enjoys.
You do not have to spend any money, but please DO NOT spend more than $15.00 on the items that will be exchanged.

You can sign up through comments or email on this blog or the Christy's blog. Please include the following information when you sign up: name(s) of child(ren), age(s) of child(ren), the state in which you live, and your email address. (If you're not comfortable posting any of that information, you may email me at dairyqueen03@gmail.com

Please feel free to ask questions, and PLEASE blog about this so that we can get a lot of people involved. This will be more fun if we have a lot of participants!

I'm busy busy busy this week! (And a teaser for you)

2009-06-09T21:49:00.003-04:00

We are doing Vacation Bible School this week. The girls are having fun and so am I! I have also been keeping an extra child in the afternoons too.

Anyways, I've been working on plans for our pond unit that we plan to start next week...

So, I may be scarce around here this week, but you'll want to be here Monday because Christy from Superheros and Princesses and I have something fun to announce!

We have a lot of reading to do!

2009-06-08T21:57:00.000-04:00

The Bookworm posted the top 30 Picture Books as taken from the Top 100 picture book poll of 2009. So, she asked that we highlight the ones we've read. I highlighted the ones we've read in red. I'm ashamed. It's not that we don't read, we just haven't read many of these! Anyways, I have some good books to add to our library list! Some of them I read while I was in college for early childhood, but realized that I haven't read them to my own kids!

I think it's so neat that so many of the top books were written so long ago!

#1: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963)
#2: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)
#3: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1979)
#4: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)
#5: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (2003)
#6: Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (1941)
#7: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (1955)
#8: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (1939)
#9: Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag (1928)
#10: Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems (2004)
#11: The Story of Ferdinand by Monroe Leaf, ill. Robert Lawson (1936)
#12: Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (1994)
#13: Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (1948)
#14: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, ill. Lane Smith(1989)
#15: Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes (1996)
#16: Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (1987)
#17: Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina (1947)
#18: In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (1970)
#19: Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney (1982)
#20: George and Martha by James Marshall (1972)#
21: Bark, George by Jules Feiffer (1999)
#22: The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone, ill. by Mike Smollin (1971)
#23: Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban (1964)
#24: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, ill. Lois Ehlert (1989)#25: The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton (1942)
#26: Corduroy by Donald Freeman (1976)
#27: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (1902)
#28: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, ill. Ray Cruz(1972)
#29: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (1969)
#30: Brown, Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? by Bill Martin Jr., ill. Eric Carle (1967)

So, which ones have you read?

Beach Trip number 2!!

2009-06-07T20:35:00.003-04:00

We had a great time on our second beach trip! We spent most of the time hanging out at the pools, and I think we all could have stayed another week!

They had a mini water park at the resort we stayed at, and Daisy must have gone down this slide no less than 250 times! She had the best time!

I have plenty more pictures that I'll probably be boring you all with, but you'll have to suffer through :)

We have Vacation Bible School this week, and I'm going to work on planning our next theme - pond theme! Be looking out for my ideas as I plan and then as we dig in!

Our First Beach Trip

2009-06-05T22:00:00.001-04:00

We went on a short vacation last week with Joel's family. We had a lot of fun playing and visiting with the family. Daisy, at 4 years old is the oldest of 7 children that make up The Dairy King's parents' grandchildren; and they were all together at one time in one house!

We go to the same beach every year, and there is an awesome sweet shop there, so we go have ice cream every year. We also love to get fudge there, but I was very good and didn't get any this year. Here are some pictures of us enjoying our ice cream (Petunia's cone was seriously soggy by the time she got done!)

We had some family pictures made while we were there (I'll post some later), and when we finished, we took the girls out of their dresses and let them play in their underwear. Yep. I'm serious. And I'm not ashamed! See. We took pictures!

Don't you love backwards panties?

Quiet Time

2009-06-03T22:25:00.000-04:00

A very important part of our day is what we call Quiet Time. Some days it turns to nap time, but we don't talk about that :) I have some activities that they are allowed to do during quiet time. The rule is that they are to stay on their bed and be quiet. I let them take milk in a sippy cup, because that often soothes them to sleep.

Other things I let them take along are...
puzzles
books
crayons w/paper, coloring books, or activity books (only Mary Helen since I don't trust Anna to not decorate the walls yet)
magna doodle

Things I plan to do this year. . .
Themed quiet time packs! I hope to include lacing cards, felt board activities, wipe off games, etc. to go with whatever theme we are doing. Should keep things interesting!

Do you do anything like this? What are some things you let your kiddos take for quiet time?

Themes we're planning for this year

2009-06-01T22:00:00.000-04:00

I am working on a list of themes we want to cover this year. I don't know what order we will go in, or how long we will spend on each theme. As long as we have fun stuff to do with each unit, and they are learning and having fun, we will stick with it.

Insects and bugs (this will include worms, caterpillars, ants, etc.)

Farm animals (I wonder if we could find a dairy farm to visit?? LOL)

Zoo animals (probably include this with a jungle theme)

5 Senses (All about me - we will learn body parts as well as five senses)

Pond Life (frogs, ducks, geese, fish, snakes, etc)

Taking care of our bodies (hygiene, eating healthy, exercise, etc)

Guess what came to our house?!!

2009-05-31T22:15:00.003-04:00

Oh yeah! The ice cream truck!! I was right in front of him in the neighborhood, and I called Joel to bring the girls out. He turned around a few houses before us (we are the last on a dead end), so I turned around and chased him down (oh yes, I did!). I asked if he'd come back down, so my girls got to get ice cream from the ice cream truck!! It really is the small things in life, isn't it? What fun!

Where do you get your great ideas?

2009-05-30T22:07:00.001-04:00

I would be nothing without the generous people on the internet!!

Here are some places I go a lot!

~ Yahoo! has groups for almost anything you can imagine! Here is a great one for workboxers!

~ Homeschool Share is a great resource! It is mostly based on Five In A Row (FIAR) and designed for lapbooks and notebooks, but you can often use the resources in many other ways (filefolder games, extra practice, etc). They are going to have a workbox section soon! (Homeschool share also has a yahoo! group.)

~ I have a Delicious account. It is a networking site for bookmarks. You can see mine by clicking here. You can get on lots of trails to more great stuff. the blue numbers on the right of each description shows how many other people have bookmarked the same page. You can click on different users to see what they have listed. Fun stuff!

~ There are many homeschool message boards. I have recently joined The Homeschool Lounge. It looks to be very active, and full of good information.

Okay, your turn! What are your favorite places to visit? Do you have a Delicious account to share with us? Do tell!

I will do a post soon of some of my favorite homeschool bloggers, but you can look on my profile at blogs that I follow for a great list!

Tot School

2009-05-28T22:02:00.000-04:00

Have you read about Tot School? I am going to be using this for a lot of ideas for Anna this year. Go here to read all about it. That link has a page of all the bloggers who participate in tot school, and gives a great description of what it's all about. You can even use many of these ideas in workboxes!

Are you planning for your next school year?

2009-05-26T21:52:00.002-04:00

As you know from my previous posts, I am in planning mode! I am working towards a schedule to keep us on track so that I can manage our home, school, socializing, and still enjoy down time and fun time.

Here are some nuggets I'm trying to remember as I make plans and set priorities.

~ I will plan my quiet time for early in the morning. I draw my strength from Christ, and do not want to train my children or relate to my family outside of Him. I will begin my day in the Word and in prayer, so that I will be working in His strength.
~ I will exercise more regularly. I need the energy and good health to keep up!
~ I am going to work on training my children to do more chores. The more help I have the more time I have to do fun things with my family.
~ I am going to schedule planning time into each week so that I can sit down to focus on our calendar or events, our school plans, menu plans, and the like. When I have a plan, I can get more accomplished and spend less time wondering what we will be doing, eating, going, etc.

I am going to plan school time for each of the girls this year. I have not been focusing enough on Anna, and while I don't think she needs formal schooling, she needs some intentional time from me. I am going to be compiling a list of themes, skills, and the like that I want to do this year.

I love planning time!!

What are some new goals you have for the upcoming year?

What I'm Reading

2009-05-24T21:41:00.002-04:00

We are headed to the beach tomorrow, and I have my reading bag ready! Want to know what I'm planning to read? Of course you do! Right?

Anyways, I'm going to tell you either way :)
~Managers of Their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell ~ This is a great book about scheduling for homeschool families. I've borrowed a book from another lady, but I will be ordering the book when my homeschool budget recovers from convention! The book includes a scheduling kit, and I know this is a book that I will re-read every year.

~Just Around the Corner by Steve and Teri Maxwell ~ This one is a devotion book by the same people who wrote Managers of Their Homes. She has written a series of devotions for moms and he has written them for dads. I am being encouraged and challenged by each one. This collection is from about five years (1996-2001 I think). They are still writing these monthly, and you can subscribe to them for free on their website.

Teri Maxwell has also written several other books including Managers of Their Chores, Managers of Their Schools, and Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit. You can read all about them on their website at www.titus2.com (They will be in my town this fall, and I can't wait!!).

The other two books in my bag are To Train Up a Child by Michael Pearl and Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Trip. I am about half way through Shepherding a Child's Heart and it has been wonderful so far.

What's on your reading list for this summer?

Workbox Intro

2009-05-22T23:06:00.002-04:00

The Work of Childhood blog is hosting a carnival of homeschoolers who are using the workbox system. She's titled it Thinking Outside the Box. This week we are introducing ourselves and telling a bit about our homeschool. . . If you are thinking about or doing workboxes, this should be a great place for information, ideas, and inspiration!

Here are some questions she posed on her blog.

How many boxes do you fill? Right now, my 5 year old is doing 9 boxes. I hope to move up to 12 before Christmas. My 3 year old will start with 6 boxes in Augusst or September.
Do you expect your children to go in order? Mary Helen (5) goes in order. I think I will probably let Anna (3) do in any order.
Do you use the schedule strips? no, but I am considering it beginning in the fall.
How long does it take you to fill the boxes? I try to plan ahead, which takes about an hour a week, then about 10-15 minutes daily.
Do you fill your work boxes EACH night with all new items? Some of our boxes are themed, so I just pull the next math worksheet out of the book or add a new Bob book to the box. I am trying to have 4-6 that are the same theme, but not really the same exact all the time.
What do your kids do with the empty boxes? They go right back to their spots.
Do you put away the ‘supplies’ each night? or do your kids? I have a box on top of the workbox shelf where she puts completed items. I put them away weekly usually.
Anything else you want to add? I'm excited to get more done and we spend more time together. I am also using lots of the "extras" that I've purchased along the way. I hope I can do this successfully with Anna (3) this fall!

Planning Time!

2009-05-19T23:45:00.004-04:00

We're still doing beach week here, but that's not what I'm blogging about today.

Even though I plan to do school year-round, I can't help but see Fall as our "new year". I am gearing up to get us on a different schedule, one that will include some more things for Anna. I am going to do some "Tot-School" with her, and she is going to have her own workboxes.

So, I am evaluating and setting some priorities and goals for our family. I am prayerfully considering what our days, weeks, and months will look like next year.

I am making lists of cleaning jobs that have to be done, menu idea, theme ideas, workbox ideas, field trip ideas, things I want Anna to learn, etc.

Are you setting goals for next year? What would you like to accomplish in 09/10? What are you going to do to see that it gets done?

Editing after Mama Snail's comment ~

In your homeschool calendar, are you doing like 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off. Or 9 on 9 off? Or 3 on, 3 off? Or just take time off when you want? We don't set a calendar per se, but we will pretty much go all year. We will be taking breaks when life gets hectic, when we take vacations, or when we get overwhelmed with house duties such as deep cleaning or yard work :)

When will your girls "graduate" to the next grade level? In August? Which is why you think of it being the new year.... What about a first day of school tradition/ceremony...are you going to do something for that? Mary Helen began Kindergarten in March. If she were in the school system, she would be wrapping up her Pre K year now. We will continue on with Kindergarten this coming year, and she will move to first grade in the Summer or Fall of 2010. We will celebrate when we decide to end Kindergarten, and have our picture made for the first day of 1st grade. I don't know yet what I'm going to use to determine that she "passes" kindergarten :)

Are you going to make a home management binder? I have a home management binder, and I plan to do some purging, some adding, and hopefully a lot more utilizing of it for this year! I also plan to order Managers of Their Homes when my homeschool budget recovers from convention so I can fit everything into our day, and hopefully make better use of our time.

I am curriculum/material shopping planning now. I haven't set goals yet. But to make sure it gets done...I have you to help me! I am SO glad we have each other for accountability now! We will have to get together with our binders one day and all our plans, etc!

Imagine the Possibilities!

2009-05-17T21:12:00.003-04:00

This is very random, but I think we are going to enjoy it!

I was making some craft stick word families for Mary Helen, and was trying to figure how we could keep them separated . I decided these small bathroom cups would be perfect, but I didn't know how I could make them stand up. I pulled out this foam board from some other project and hot glued the cups in rows. As I was glueing, I thought of all the fun things I could do with the board!

Here's the board ~
use for patterns (can use pom-poms, beans, noodles, etc)
use for sorting

for word families

you can also use them for alphabetical order, sight words, adding, etc.

Beach Day 2!

2009-05-14T17:26:00.003-04:00

Today was one of those days. We got a late start and Mary Helen and I seemed to take forever to do our jobs this morning. So, we had lunch late, quiet time late, and school WAY late. But, we got it done and we didn't stress out about it.

First up, I'll show you what was in our boxes. I had a math sheet and her Bob books that I didn't take a picture of. In the first picture you see a sheet about jellyfish that we read and then she colored, the supplies to make a jellyfish craft, and a card that says "Help Mommy make a special recipe". those were her last three boxes.

Here you see her Draw Write Now book, a set of word family craft sticks (-at was today's family), and her sign language cards.

This is a sorting/counting activity we did using colored goldfish.

Here are pictures of her doing her thing!

Sorting goldfish.

Making jell-o aquariums.

showing off her jellyfish...

All in all, we're having a great time!

Beach Theme Books

2009-05-14T11:59:00.003-04:00

Head over to the Bookworm's Booklist for some great recommendations for a beach theme!

She has great booklists for lots of themes. Her blog is bursting with books! Enjoy your visit and show her some love with your comments!

Beach Week Begins!

2009-05-13T12:38:00.000-04:00

We kicked off our beach theme today. Mary Helen did lots of work today! I moved her from 6 boxes to 9 boxes today. She was a real trooper through it all ~ she even had a couple of extra chores today that she did without complaining! She is really maturing!

Here are some pictures from our day!

Here are our workboxes for today:

1. Math Sheet (we are using Horizons)

2. Bob books (we read book 3 today. it is challenging for her, but she is doing great!)

3. Shells and palm trees ~ she had to make two patterns for me.

4. Draw Write Now - Our book has a whole section of ocean habitats! We spread one lesson over three days. She writes two lines on each of the first two days then does the picture on the last day.

5. sign language cards ~ we are starting with the alphabet. I am adding in 5 a day until we finish, then I will introduce word cards more slowly.

6. Fishy swizzle sticks - used as pointers for our ocean words in the "beach" area.

7. Book about animals that live in the water, fun foam ocean glasses, and Nemo gummies.

8. Two worksheets: one about fish with several fish to color, and one to count different things under the ocean (www.kidssoup.com)

9. Leap Frog phonics puzzle game.

Here she is with her shell/palm tree patterns.

and doing her Draw Write Now book.
ocean words (words printed from kidssoup, pocket charts from dollar spot at Target!)

Reading at the beach!

Anna also enjoyed the Nemo gummies!

When Mary Helen finished the shell patterning, I put the shells and palm trees in the pool for Anna and my day care child to play with. They had a ball too!

We have lots more fun stuff planned for the next couple of weeks!

We're Going to the Beach!

2009-05-12T22:17:00.001-04:00

We are taking two beach trips back to back beginning in a couple of weeks, so we are going to have a beach/ocean theme for the next two weeks. I have some fun things planned, and I will let you all in on the fun. Here is our beach area.

It is set up in part of our playroom, behind our couch. I will use the kiddie pool to corral sand activities that are on the agenda. The girls have had a blast already! They played in there for a couple of hours tonight. They had all of their kiddie chairs lined up with all of their stuffed animals sitting around the pool.
ever see a kangaroo at the beach before?

Busy Week!

2009-05-07T11:50:00.001-04:00

I wrote and scheduled several posts for this week which is good, because I have not been motivated to update! I have had quite a week trying to get all my stuff organized. Since we are going to school year round, and our breaks will be times that we are super busy or out of town, I don't want to take off to regroup. So, we've been doing school, and I've been reorganizing all of my homeschool stuff and life in general. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems when I work on one thing, a thousand others fall apart!

Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband. He took us all out to eat and to Lowes for a few hours last night to get me out of the house and to stop focusing on everything that needs to be done around here. Then when we got home, he did a couple loads of laundry. Bless him!

So, here are some highlights from our week.

I got this critter carnival at the convention last week and we found some roly polies (pill bugs) in our backyard to play in it. While they watched them play, I looked up information on them and read it to the girls. Mary Helen thought it was very interesting that they molt then eat their skin!
She was so taken by the roly polies, we decided to keep them. I read about what they needed and we fixed up a little home for them. It's hard to see, but there is one crawling on that stick.

Since then, she has added several worms and a snail to the collection. I couldn't find the snail to get it's picture, but here's the worm :) The snail is my favorite! I love to watch him come out of his shell and stick his antennas out. We will have to do some reading up on them for sure.

Here's Mary Helen with her first two Bob books. She can read them both! She is very proud of herself, and mommy is rather proud too!

Here is the closet I've been working on. I have all of our activities and books listed on index cards in a recipe box. Now when I plan our week, I pull out the index cards and when I get ready to fill our workboxes, I take my index cards to the closet and pull out what I need. Hopefully this will save me from looking through everything we have everyday.

Here is the closet that needs my attention. I am hoping to get shelves put in it like the other closet soon.

I have another busy weekend, but I hope to get some good stuff set up for our beach theme next week! We are going on two different beach trips in two weeks, so I figure we'll learn something about them before we go!

Discovery Toys Overload

2009-05-05T19:30:00.000-04:00

By far, the Discovery Toys was my most expensive investment from the weekend. Here's what I got:

This Build a book has pages of pockets (like baseball card albums) and you use the cards to sort each page by a certain criteria. I think I will start it off with Mary Helen in workboxes.

Playful patterns ~ I love that these are slightly textured pattern shapes. I will use these for Mary Helen's workboxes as well. These are great skills, and just the type of thing she enjoys!

These fancy puzzle trains will be given to Anna for her birthday in July.

It's a Match! I don't know how to describe what this does, but it is awesome! It's one of those things that I looked at online and passed it over, but when I looked at it and played with it, I loved it! It has four books and covers many, many skills. Another one for the Workboxes.

*That's one of the best things about the convention ~ you can touch, play, flip, etc each item before you buy it.

Books! Books! Books!

2009-05-04T19:30:00.001-04:00

At our house, we love workbooks and activity books. It is not unusual for Mary Helen to sit down with a dollar store alphabet workbook and do the whole thing while she watches tv.

These are sticker books and a few activity books. The stickers are all reusable, so these will last as long as we keep up with all our stuff! These are going in my bag for when I need quick, quiet, small entertainment (church, doctor's office, etc.)

The Draw Write Now books caught my eye, I love the way they are set up to let them draw, write, and learn all at once! I actually got this book in my free gift for subscribing to The Old Schoolhouse magazine. I picked up the workbook at another vendor during the convention. I plan to do one of these a week in workboxes.

These are coloring and activity books to fit themes I plan for us to do in the coming year. The two blue books have information on lots of animals included.

Here are some of Anna's goodies that will go in her quiet time bags.

Drawing books that Mary Helen enjoys. The Dora one will go in her vacation travel box. The others will be in quiet time bags.

Paint with water! I never see these books around here. These will go one page at a time in workboxes.

These books will be split up between summer travel, quiet boxes, and workboxes.

Phonics Reading Rods Activity Pack

2009-05-03T19:30:00.000-04:00

I just think this is the neatest thing. Mary Helen loves rhyming, so I think she'll do well with word family type lessons. I plan to use this in our workboxes and have her complete one card each time it's in a box.

Homeschool Convention Time!

2009-05-02T22:22:00.000-04:00

Boy, am I tired! I spent the last two days with great friends doing something we LOVE ~ shopping and planning for our homeschooling year!

Last year was my first convention, and I just loved it! I got so much encouragement and there are so many vendors with so many great things for our school. This year, we went to a different, and the workshops weren't very appealing to me, so I didn't pay the extra to hear them. I just went to shop. And shop I did! I am all set for the coming year. One thing I love about the convention shopping is that there are things that are good for things other than homeschool. I got several things to extend our curriculum, but I also got things for our quiet time bags, workboxes, and for out and about (restaraunts, car trips, doctors offices).

I think next year I will go to the other convention because I loved all of the workshops so much and the vendors were basically the same at both.

I will show you most of my stuff throughout the week and tell you how I plan to use it. One small piece of advice if you are planning your first convention...take one of these:

I filled mine up on Friday and Saturday. I made the little liner so my small things wouldn't fall through and so I'd have a pocket for small snacks and a bottle of water.

I'll start my posts of everything I got tomorrow!

Making New Friends!

2009-04-29T17:07:00.001-04:00

When I started my blog, I had no idea anyone would read it other than my mom. I certainly didn't expect to find so many other blogs to read and find such great stuff from. Definitely the last thing on my mind was that I would meet new people "in real life" to be friends. I have met two great ladies from blogging, and I have to tell you it has been a blessing both times!

I started reading The Snail's Trail during the 5 Minutes for Mom blog party. She is a homeschooling mom with SO many fun ideas! We figured out a couple of weeks ago that we are town neighbors! So, today we were able to get together at the park with our kids and meet and talk about homeschooling and all sorts of other things. It was so much fun!

Mary Helen did most of the photography, but here are our pictures from the day!

Aren't Kari's kids just the cutest?! Our kids got along famously well, as did the moms! It's just amazing how similar our lives are - both trained (her) or almost-trained (me) school teachers who are now homeschooling. Big Snail and Mary Helen are just a month apart in age, as are Little Snail and Anna!

Being just 20 minutes apart, we will be able to get together for play dates and field trips for a long time!

Keeping My Head Above Water

2009-04-28T08:19:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, Anna had her tonsils and adnoids removed. We came home on Friday, and have been trying to keep her hydrated enough to stay out of the hospital enough. We've also let her get by with things we don't normally let her get away with. It's already coming back to get us. She has been horribly grumpy and whiny.

So, today is the day I am going to try to take back my house. Yesteday, I abandoned all responsibilities and the girls and I went to my grandparents house all day. Then, I took fast food to Joel in the field, and I came home and put the girls to bed. But, today, we are going to get back on schedule. If. It. Kills. Us. (and I think it might).

Mary Helen has been acting out some, and I think it's a mix of being on the go and off schedule so much. Anna's been getting the best of my attention, and Joel has been working late nights. I noticed a great difference in Mary Helen's behavior in the weeks on the schedule, so if for no other reason, we are going back for her.

I hope to have some interesting things to post about soon, but for now, I am just trying to keep my head above water.

For a great read on setting the tone in your home, head over to We Are THAT Family and see what Kristen had to say today.

Road Trip!

2009-04-25T10:57:00.000-04:00

Finally, here are some pictures I took last weekend when I went to visit Elise.

I've never been one to snap pictures of myself, but I figured I would just for fun. . . so here I am headed out!

Look at that long, straight road!

Would you want your legal business handled by the Law Dog?
This is a charming little coffee house in a small town on the way. I didn't stop here this time, but Joel and I ate lunch here on our way to the mountains for our anniversary. It was just as charming on the inside, and yummy to boot!

This is where I did eat:

I would like to stop here. I'm not sure of the story of this beautiful place, but they give tours. I'd love to stop. May be Elise and I can meet up and make it a field trip!

This is an abandoned antique store in a stretch of several antique stores that I would love to stop in. If you look closely, you'll see some metal porch chairs that I was tempted to stop and ask someone about. I really want some of them! Hopefully next time I'm up Elise's way, I will have time to stop and peruse!

Now, if you want to see what we did when I was up there, head on over to Elise's blog and check out her craft room transformation!

When she comes down here (hopefully sooner than later) we are going to transform my playroom!

How I organize for school

2009-04-22T08:08:00.001-04:00

This year, my daughter and I are doing My Father's World. Mary Helen is four, and "should" be in pre-k. We tried out a couple of pre-k curriculums, but none of them were a good fit. Then we took a few months off from school, and I decided to go ahead and buy the My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum. I had planned to use it anyways for kindergarten. We began in March and plan to use it through May or June of 2010, then start her with first grade.

Anywho. . . I wanted to share some pictures of how we set up and do school around here.

This is her school bag. It normally is home to a pencil as well. Keeping all the supplies in this bag is a lifesaver since Mary Helen love all things crafty. These items are only for school time. We have had too many frustrating days looking for scissors, glues sticks, and crayons!

An action shot!

These canvas bins house our craft sticks that we use for counting sticks and our picture cards for each letter. The jar with the white lid has our number cards for math. The green basket has our counting sticks.
Our magnet letters. The letters on the left are letters we've studied.
Shot of the whole area. I hang our badges to the left of the chalkboard and keep the week's truth written on the chalkboard.
I keep all our unit stuff organized in file folders. I write a general plan on the outside of the folder so I don't forget anything.

My folders in a cute magazine rack I got at a yard sale :)

Mary Helen's school folder. I wrote her name the way she should write it. She tends to only use capital letters or make cutesy letters, which is fine by me anytime except school time. There's also a chart with numbers, shapes, colors, etc. on it taped on the front.

Inside she keeps her calendar and 100 chart on the right and her weekly work goes on the left. Days of the week are taped in here.

I can't say enough good things about MFW so far. We are enjoying it. I love that I can get by with 20 minutes a day if I choose to, or I can extend things out as long as I'd like.

Look what I just won!

2009-04-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I won a giveaway! This is a first for me, and it's just wonderful! Jamie at BusyBizzB made this adorable tag blankie. It is just in time for a sweet baby that a couple at our church just had!

If you haven't met Jaime yet, you should head on over. Her blog is pretty new, but she has some great stuff over there! She is very talented, and has a fun etsy shop.

Don't you just love being in a community of bloggers?!

Happy Sunday!

2009-04-19T07:36:00.001-04:00

I'm just doing a few minutes of blog-jogging before I dress for church. It's been a great weekend! Friday afternoon I flew over to Elise's Nest Sweet Nest! We shopped at the best stores ever - an antique mall, Hobby Lobby, and Good Will! Talk about hospitality~she knew her guest and treated her right!

I'll post more details about all our fun, but you can read about what we did at her blog!

Sorry for all the exclamation points, but they all seemed to fit!

Springtime is in the air!

2009-04-17T08:30:00.000-04:00

div>One last thing I got on after Easter clearance was these tulip muffin tins. I wanted to get two of them, and I sure couldn't drop $9 each for them. I snagged them for 50% off. I probably could have waited them out and may be they would have gone for less; but we do muffin tin lunches a couple times a month, and we can always bake in them. Which is what we did yesterday. Twice!

I made our muffin breakfast in them yesterday morning, then this is what we did in the afternoon:

sorry, no particular order here :) ~ this is the girls mixing the icing with food coloring in ziplock bags...

Here are the yummy cupcakes fresh out of the oven (we mixed them with food coloring right in the tin). I shaved the tops off so that they would sit flat, and I reserved the puffy tops to make a mini trifle (truffle or trifle?).

Don't worry, we aren't sending these off to anyone. . . so you don't have to worry about that finger licking!

Anna's masterpieces:

Mary Helen's masterpieces:

I also saved what was left of the icing to use on sugar cookies next week!

What a fun afternoon!

After Easter Sale Goodies!

2009-04-16T15:31:00.000-04:00

I stopped in Walgreens on Tuesday afternoon. I was hoping to get some Peeps to put up for a couple of weeks until we start studying about nests. I have seen some great crafts and recipes, and want the little chicks to put in some yummy nests.

Anyways, of course they had all their Easter stuff marked down. Mostly 50%, some 75%. We don't "do" the Easter bunny, so I hadn't really looked at all the stuff they put out just for the holiday. I got SO much good stuff! I also hit up the Walmart clearance aisle yesterday. Take a look at what I got!

Egg Dye kits. Now it's a good enough deal to have less than half price kits for next year, but it gets better!

These are the cups that hold the dye from one of the kits (I bought 2 of each since I've got two girls). These cups can be used for sorting, painting, etc all year long!

Fun cups for drinking or for storing stuff (think how cute they could be with scrapbook paper, and used to hold art supplies on a lazy susan!)

These grow capsule things. They are cheap little things that I normally would never buy, but I am putting them in my emergency bag for the vacations we've got coming up (one with just us, and two with Joel's family that will include up to 7 children under 5!) Fifty cents is a small price to pay for 15 minutes of entertainment!

These stickers came in the other egg dye kit. I am going to put them in their travel play kits (I'll show them once I get them put together)

Coloring books - 75cents each!

Princess puzzles $1.74! (regular $6.99)
Disney princess sticker coloring crafts (got two at $1.74 each!)
And another $1.74 princess item - a board game! All the princess stuff will go on vacations, hidden until we need them. If my some miracle we don't have to use them, we will save them for Christmas :)
Cute little sippy cups just for the fun of it!

Notepads, stickers, and mini puzzles ~ for the travel kits!

What fun! I can't believe all the stuff I got that really isn't all that Easter"ish"! I hope there will be some good boredome busters!

Next week sometime I'll show you the other things I've collected to keep the kiddos entertained on vacation!

2009-04-15T22:32:00.000-04:00

Mama King from 4 Crazy Kings has tagged me in 8 Is Enough. This was HARD!

8 Things I am Looking Forward to:
1. Going to see Elise this weekend!!
2. Taking our first ever family vacation with just the four of us (and our babysitter LOL)
3. Another weekend with just me and the Dairy King!
4. Eat chocolate everyday and not gain weight!
5. Having all my sewing and crafting stuff organized (almost there!)
6. Homeschool Convention (about 2 weeks!)
7. Mary Helen being able to read
8. Having my own craft room (I can dream, right?!)

8 Things I did Yesterday:
1. Went to Sonic Happy Hour (Every Tuesday!)
2. Ate fish stew for the first time in nearly 10 years.
3. Got fun stuff at Walgreens after Easter sale!
4. Held a newborn baby
5. Laundry
6. Spent 2 hours all by myself (Got to love that babysitter!)
7. Wore flip flops!
8. Put my make up on in the car (at 3pm)

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
1. Read and follow a pattern.
2. Sew and craft while I blog jog!
3. Have time to clean, homeschool, organize, craft, and garden all while having time to read and spend time with the family :)
4. Take another cruise!
5. Sleep every night. (insomnia....)
6. Get to meet a lot of the wonderful bloggers I follow :)
7. Open an etsy shop
8. Decide how to decorate our playroom.

8 Shows I Watch:
I'm not sure I watch 8 shows!
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Jon and Kate Plus 8 (when I get the chance)
3. 18 Kids and Counting (when I get the chance)
4. Other than that I sit on my laptop while my sweet husband watches Law and Order and Cops (rolls eyes LOL)

Now I'm supposed to tag 8 people to do this. . .so here goes
1. Elise at Nest Sweet Nest ~ Now my "real life" friend!
2. Katie at A Listmaker's Life
3. Janna at Happiness is a Journey ~ My friend I met through the swap!
4. Sarah at I Blame My Mother
5. Jenny at Our Nifty Notebook ~ I've just recently found this Jenny, but she's got great stuff!
6. Hillary at The Other Mama

Spring Swap Goodies!

2009-04-15T08:48:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry it took me so long to get this up, Janna!

I had a wonderful swap partner for the Spring Swap hosted by Whitney! You should go check out Janna's blog ~ she has lost over 100 pounds and has blogged about her experience. This girl is an inspiration (I'm typing on the treadmill!)! She recently met her goal on the Weight Watchers program, which I am also doing.

I was nice enough not to send her my favorite spring dessert recipe or my favorite Easter candy (Cadbury eggs, I only had ONE this season ~ yay for self control!)

Anyways, here are the goodies:

All sorts of spring goodies - a little wire chair candle holder, bucket, flower hang-y thing (my girls tried to claim that!), aloe fuzzy socks, a blue cross, pink and brown (love it!) note pad set, a spiral notebook with the neates tear out cards with an H on them, a reusable shopping bag in it's own nifty pouch, a letter H decoration ~ can you believe all the goodies?!

But she didn't stop there ~ she included stuff for my girls!! these adorable sun dresses, and they each got a butterfly, stuffed bunny, and hair clips. (Mary Helen had already taken hers and put them in her room so they didn't get to get in the picture).

Thanks so much, Janna! We love it all!

Our Schedule

2009-04-14T08:19:00.001-04:00

I mentioned that our family has begun a schedule. It is a life saver! I even get a full hour of rest time without any argument! Here is ours, and I'll explain it. Make sure that your schedule works for you. Make sure there is enough flexibility that you have time to go to the grocery store and the park!

Hopefully you can just click on that to see it bigger. The green column is me, pink is older dd, and purple is younger dd (by the way everything in our house that can be pink or purple is, and the girls know who is pink and who is purple).

I start with my quiet time and computer time. My girls have been trained to know that they are to interrupt me minimally during this time. I have milk in a containter in the fridge that Mary Helen can easily work herself. She is in charge of fixing hers and Anna's milk. None of us are morning people, so it works well for us to leave each other alone for the most part. It's 8:23, and Anna's still sleeping. When she wakes up she will have her milk and park in front of the tv while she wakes up. I'm sure I'm poisoning my kids with all the Dora and Curious George.

At 9, we all have breakfast together and I read a story out of our children's Bible.

After breakfast, Mary Helen does her chores. She needs very little direction or help from me, thanks to the chore chart (see a few posts down for those).

During school, I spend about 30 minutes on lessons with Mary Helen, then she does workboxes on her own. I am in and out of the kitchen where she works to answer questions and guide her through. It rarely takes her until 12 to complete her work. When she finishes, she is allowed to have free time. Anna has activities in her own workboxes that she can do, but she usually chooses not to. She's only 2, and I'm not ready to push those things. I usually only change her activites out once a week unless it is a coloring sheet that she has completed.

During lunch, we all sit together again and I read a few stories to them.

Quiet time is the best time of the day! I set our timer for one hour and they are in different rooms. The rule is that they must stay on the bed, can only play with what's in their bag, and they must be quiet. Last week, they each napped about twice. I napped about everyday :).

Our activity time varies each day. Lots of days it is a craft, sometimes we will bake together, and other days we may go for a walk, blow bubbles, or some other outside activity. The idea is that I will be spending this time with them. This is really the trick to getting quiet time to work...they have something to look forward to.

During their free time, they can be in the playroom or outside, doing pretty much whatever they want (within our rules of course).

Now, that's a lot of words! If you have any questions, I'd be glad to try to answer them.

Our Easter Weekend

2009-04-13T07:45:00.000-04:00

Here are a few pictures of the girls enjoying the Easter celebration at church and at our house after church yesterday.

I don't know what's going on with my computer and camera communication, but I've only got the patience to do two pictures this morning!

I decided Friday to get them little buckets and paint them to use for their Easter baskets. Mary Helen's has butterflies and Anna's has bumble bees. I hope they will come in handy for something else besides Easter baskets!

I am going to try to get back on later to post a copy of our schedule. We are starting week two today, and hopefully it will continue to work well.

I hope that you all had a wonderful Easter and celebrated God's gift to us. I am so grateful that I have God's forgiveness for the sins I commit. Jesus paid that price for me and for you. Have you accepted his gift so that you know where you will spend eternity?

Our Week In Review

2009-04-10T07:21:00.001-04:00

I have to tell y'all, I put our family on a schedule that started Monday. It has drastically cut into my computer time, but my family is thriving on it! One day next week perhaps I'll share the schedule with you. The best thing about it is I am more intentional about spending more time with the girls. The most fun thing is that every afternoon, we have an activity together after our quiet time. Some days we do a craft, some times we may go for a walk or bike ride, and other days we may play a game or go to the park.

Here are some hilights from this week:

On Monday, we made paper plate bunnies like this.

On Tuesday, we made paper bag clown puppets. I found the template here.

On Wednesday, we melted down old crayons to make new, fun crayons. We used beach themed candy molds, and plan to give some to each of the girls' cousins when we have our big family beach trip in May. Here are some pictures from that day.

Then, yesterday, I spent the day shopping in the big city with my grandma, and left a small activity with the babysitter. I had them decorate plain white bags that were going to be used for a special surprise later. Joel has started planting season, so he has some late nights for a while. I read this idea at Homespun Heart and knew my girls would love it. . .

I put them in the guest room to get their pajamas on and play with a puzzle while I got everything ready, then I took them outside to this:

That's our car with all our blankets! We had a drive in movie night. Mary Helen was beside herself with excitement! We curled up together and watch the Barbie Swan Lake movie on our portable dvd player. Their bags that they decorated were filled with popcorn and I found some adorable cow cups on clearance at Target. We had a blast!

Today we are going to try to make sidewalk chalk eggs like I found at Skip to My Lou, and tomorrow we are going to dye Easter Eggs.

Go check out Kid Friendly Friday at I Blame Mom for even more fun ideas, and link up with your own!

WFMW ~ Tidy Totes!

2009-04-08T07:23:00.000-04:00

We have a lot of bathtub toys. My children have been known to stay in the tub for more than an hour at the time. (That's one more reason I love my laptop, I can sit in the hall right by the door and blog-jog while they splash and play!)

I came up with this idea a couple weeks ago, and thought I'd share it with you.

I have four bags. One bag has our bathtub "paint" supplies - cheap shaving cream, plastic cups, food coloring, and paint brushes (this is a BIG hit!). One has some discovery toys bathtub crayons and tracing plastic sheets (from a consignment sale for $2 ~ like new!). One has bag has paperdolls. The next one has all the miscellaneous toys that we've ended up with - squirters, boats, empty shampoo bottle, Cinderella barbi, etc.); and the last one has a tea set (with two tea pots to cut down on screaming).

We only get one bag at the time, then at the end of bathtime, they are all collected and hung in the bag where they dry out beautifully!

Edited to Add ~ These are Tidy Totes that I found at our Dollar Tree (packs of 4 for $1). I've also seen them at Walmart (but they are much more expensive). I hung them from the shower curtain hooks.

Check out what's working for others at Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family!

Sewing, Sewing, Sewing!

2009-04-06T22:03:00.000-04:00

I have been having a good time! I worked on a few things for my car. I made an organizer for my center console. . . the thing is huge, and stuff was getting lost in there! I am really happy with how it turned out.

I also made some organizers for the girls to keep all of their little things. Here it is before I put it in my car. The top left is a crayon caddy (like a crayon roll, but it velcros in place). The others are varying sized pockets. I used this tutorial for inspiration. It was actually a very simple project that I made from my stash. The striped fabric used to be curtains in our room.

I have several things on my list of things I want to do this week! Hopefully I will be able to fit a few of them in...

I made clothes!

2009-04-04T12:57:00.000-04:00

I used two tutorials to sew my first clothes for the girls. I made the 15 minute dress found at Trey and Lucy and the bandanna skirt found at V&Co. I am so tickled over them. The bandanna skirt turned out a little too short, so we added some capri length leggings and it looks adorable!

Kid Friendly Friday

2009-04-03T07:28:00.000-04:00

Be sure to head over to I Blame My Mother for Kid Friendly Friday! I linked up to my workbox post and my chore charts. There are sure to be some other fun ideas, and you should add yours too!

Chores!

2009-04-02T20:45:00.000-04:00

Since I am homeschooling, I am going to be with my children almost everyday for at least 16 more years. I figure I shouldn't be doing all the housework on my own. Besides needing some help to keep up with things, the girls need to learn some responsibility. So begins training the children. Mary Helen is my first victim.

Actually, Mary Helen loves being helpful, so she's happy to have things to do to help Mommy each day. I try to be near her for some of her chores (I'm doing something in the kitchen while she unloads the dishwasher for example) so we are spending time together. To make the job easier and more fun, I created some charts. I have also made labels for our toy bins that I hope to get up today.

Here is her chore chart. It is laminated so I can write in a chore under afternoon, and she can mark off what she's done if she wants to. Click on the picture to make it larger. Please don't tell me if I misspelled a word. It's too late now!

So, you see she has to clean her room and get herself ready for the day. How do I define clean and ready? The same way she does? I doubt it. So come these charts that will hang in her room.

If you want to make your own,I used free digital scrapbooking kits from www.shabbyprincess.com and copy and pasted them in publisher (though I'm sure you could do the same thing in word). It was a lot of fun, actually!

Workboxes, revisited

2009-04-02T03:00:00.000-04:00

Well, we have done our little version of workboxes for 3 days now. So far, they are a success. I have 6 boxes for each of my girls. Mary Helen, who is in Kindergarten, must do all six of her boxes in order each day. Anna, who is two, can pick and choose or go play. It's up to her.

While we mix our homeschool curriculum into our boxes, these are great for keeping your toddler busy so you can clean, cook, or relax!

Here are some pictures of our set up and the first day's activities for Mary Helen.

The boxes are on a shelf in the kitchen, right next to the table where we do school.

These were Anna's boxes the first day (Left to right, top to bottom)

1. Coloring sheet & crayons

2. Sandpaper and yarn to make pictures, shapes,etc.

3. shape tracing activity (she is far from being able to do this, but the practice is good for her)

4. Colored stickers and a sheet of paper with a triangle and square on them. She stuck the stickers around the outline of the shap.

5. m&m sorting paper (I added m&ms when she got ready to do this) the animals are from Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

6. wipe erase spiral pad ~ She didn't trace letters, but colored and drew on it happily none-the-less!

Mary Helen's first three boxes:

1. Color by number sheet

2. Evan Moor activity in a bag (rhyming words)

3. cutting practice

Her last three:

4. Same stickers as Anna, but she completed two patterns that I started, then made up two patterns of her own.

5. m&m sort and graph. same animals as Anna's but Mary Helen had to graph her results.

6. Same wipe erase activity as Anna, but she does the real deal :)

All of these activities are things that I had in the house before I had the idea to do this. I just pulled things out that we never have gotten to or forget about.

I am trying to put something sort of open-ended in the last box for Mary Helen, and something open-ended in at least one box for Anna.

Mary Helen enjoyed her book about learning to draw animals (picked up at Homeschool convention last year).

Anna loved her Mr. Potato Head (has been put up for a while), and she enjoys her magnetic paper doll thing (Melissa & Doug, bought at consignment sale).

Some other ideas for your boxes:

Look at http://www.childcareland.com/ for free printable activities. There are things you can use in your own way, but she has file folder games, felt board activities, etc.

Look at resources meant for lapbooks or notebooking for activities.

Playdoh

craft projects

workbooks (think dollar stores and those thick all-in-one curriculum books)

Montessori activities

Picture books

m&m patterning book (we are borrowing one from the library and it's been in her box since Tuesday)

cheerio counting book

Once you start thinking about it, you'll find lots of things to put in your boxes! you can also focus on themes for each week (we are studying the letter m and moon, so she's been doing some m&m activities, coloring moon phases for a project that will be assembled tomorrow, and using other letter M activities from online). You can also assign a theme to each box - color, number, letter, Bible, fine motor skill, etc. and look for an activity that falls under each category every day.

I've decided to keep Anna's boxes the same, except for things she finishes, for a week. So her coloring pages will get changed out, but she will keep Mr. Potato Head and her paperdoll activity all week.

I hope some of this helps someone! Please let me know if you do anything along these lines, I'd love to read and link up to more ideas!

Making Your Home a Haven

2009-04-01T22:36:00.000-04:00

I am participating in Make Your Home a Haven today. Today's assignment is to list 5 things for a morning routine.

My five are:
1. Quiet Time
2. Breakfast
3. Exercise
4. Shower
5. See to it that Mary Helen does her morning routine

Check out what everyone else is doing here.

WFMW - What Works for You?

2009-03-31T22:25:00.000-04:00

This week for WFMW, we are supposed to put a question out there for all the bloggers to answer. I have a great one!

We are mulling over allowances and chores for our 4 year old (when we get this one trained, we will start on the 2 year old). So, I want to know:
~do you give allowance?
~if so, how much?
~do your kids have regular assigned chores?
~if so, how old are they, and what are their chores?
~if you give allowance and chores, are they tied together (are they paid or penalized for their chores)?

~what do you consider age-appropriate chores for a 4 year old (almost 5)
~what do you consider an appropriate allowance for the same age?

Head over to Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT family for more problems to solve!

Hospitality Tuesday (Part 5)

2009-03-31T03:00:00.000-04:00

I may have mentioned that hospitality isn't necessarily a gift I have naturally. It takes prayer and work for me. Joel actually probably has the desire and gift more naturally than I do. He has an ability to make anyone feel welcome, at home, and at ease no matter who or where you are! His mom is much the same way.

Something I remember and think about sometimes is a conversation Joel and I had when we were talking about getting married and our future together. We discussed having children, and whether or not I would stay home with our kids. He said he would love it for me to stay home if we were able, and I wanted to (ummm, yes!). He told me that he loved that his mom was always at their basketball games and 4H events while they were growing up ~ usually with a treat for them and their friends. Later, when they were older, he remembers their were always extra people at his house (especially on bread-baking day!). His mom welcomed the extra kids (even though she no doubt had enough cooking to do with 3 growing boys all over 6'4"!). Usually one or two would hang around for dinner, which she always stretched out to make sure there was enough for whoever was at the table.

Even now, many of Joel and his siblings friends love my Mother-in-law and father-in-law. I'm pretty sure it has to do with their open home and loving spirit towards them growing up.

Joel and I hope that our home will be buzzing with the activity of our children and their friends. We hope to have extra kids for dinner. We hope to have a happy place in the memories of our children and their friends! Mary Helen's best friend right now is a sweet little boy. We have him over to play a fair amount, and almost every time, the first place he goes is the cabinet where he knows I keep the snacks!

Speaking of Joel's mom, all of her children, their spouses, and their children were in town this weekend. Here are a few snapshots of the 17 of us!

Altered Jeans with Matching Shirts & a Sad Story

2009-03-30T07:59:00.001-04:00

They are really cheesin' it up, huh?

Anyways, here are both pairs of jeans, and the matching shirts. The letters on the shirts were just heat and bond. I didn't sew anything on them.

Now for the sad story, my sewing machine is dieing a slow and painful death. I have no idea what may be going on, but I have so many things I want to do and she is letting me down. I don't know if it's fixable or if I should just go buy a new machine. My sewing skills are limited, so I thing the $100 Singer is all I'd need. If you have sewing experience, and think you might could help me figure out what's wrong, please let me know! I don't have a manual. . . this is my grandmother's machine.

So, Wednesday will be my 100th post! I was hoping for a giveaway, but it will all depend on my sewing machine. I was working on a little somethin'-somethin' for a giveaway!

I got an award!

2009-03-27T03:00:00.000-04:00

Imagine my excitement when I read my comments the other day, and I had a sweet award from Sarah at I Blame My Mother!

Here's the award:

Here are the rules:

List 7 things that you love and then pass the award on to 7 people...
tagging them and letting them know they won!

You can copy the picture of the award and put it on your sideboard
letting the whole wide world know you are KREATIV!

So, seven things I love. . .
1. Date Night with the Dairy King :)
2. Crafts (of too many sorts!)
3. Homeschooling (most days)
4. Other Bloggers!
5. 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate ~ YUMMY!!
6. Thrift Stores (even though we don't have enough in our little town)
7. Being a Dairy Queen is great, but I especially love being a princess (Don't you know my Father is the King of Kings?!)

And, I am passing my award along to...
1. Elise at Nest Sweet Nest (who knew, right?!)
2.. Monica at Homespun Heart
3. Katie at Katie's Nesting Spot
4. Sarah at Create Studio
5. Jennwa at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

I'm sorry, but I'm stopping at 5 :) Be sure to check out these wonderful blogs if you haven't seen them before!

Homeschool Workboxes

2009-03-25T22:21:00.001-04:00

Well, there's a new fad in homeschooling, and I'm going to give it a shot.

Here's the brain behind the whole phenomenom, Sue Patrick... http://www.workboxsystem.com/

Here are some bloggers who have posted about it...
Joyful Mother of 6
Ginger-Snap-Shots
Our Life Song

So, I plan to implement this in my own way, of course...as we all do with each other's ideas ~ Make it work for our life!

Mary Helen is currently doing My Father's World Kindergarten. The wonderful thing about the curriculum is that it only takes 30-45 minutes most days. The bad thing about it is that it only takes 30-45 minutes most days! Very often she asks for more! So, she will be getting six boxes each day that will be completed after we do what we need to do together. Some days she will have MFW sheets in her box, sometimes not.

Some of the things I plan to put in her box are Bible crafts/coloring pages (we will do mostly Easter stuff for the next couple of weeks), things to extend our current letter and theme (right now we are on letter M and moon), math skills, and other misc. skills.

Here is a list of some ideas:
~piggy bank/penny counting game (I found it somewhere in blogland, if I find it again, I will post links. I'm quite sure it came from a yahoo!group) She will roll a die and put the corresponding number of pennies on the counting mat until she fills the mat.
~Next week, since we will be working on the letter M, we will have several M&M activities. See www.thevirutualvine.com under themes, then m&m for lots of ideas and printables. Also look here.
~Play doh
~dry erase books and placemats to practice handwriting (she loves these!)
~collage making - magazine, scissors, glue

For Anna, our 2 1/2 year old, I will also have 6 boxes each day. She likes to have her own things to do during school time. Her activities will also include Bible coloring and crafts. She will also have some of the ziplock activities in her boxes (See last Thursday's post).

Other things she will have:
~tearing and glueing construction paper
~cutting practice
~lacing cards
~sorting
~matching
~tong transferring (pom poms, plastic ice cube things from $ Tree)
~m&m activities
~stickers

I also have a book from Evan Moore (I think) of take it to your seat type center activities that I have for the boxes. I have a box with files for categories to pull ideas and activities from. It takes initial plannins, but I will be able to re-use many ideas and pull out stuff that we've long forgotten about or never get to. I *hope* to make a spreadsheet or some kind of system to keep up with what I've used to keep things rotated through.

*Montessori type activities are good for this as well. Here are a lot of ideas.

I am hoping this will be a good thing for us. I will take pictures of all the action next week, and make a post of how it's going for us.

Hospitality 4

2009-03-24T03:00:00.000-04:00

I have been perusing the internet looking to see what other folks are saying about hospitality. Here's what Momstheword had to say about the topic.

That is what it is like to make our homes "sing." As homemakers, we have the ability to make our home a place of rest and beauty and welcome, or we can make it a place that people can't wait to get out of...including our own family.

She has lots of other great stuff on the topic as well. Please go check out her post.

One thing I want to touch on here, though, is the last bit of that excerpt..."including our own family".

We may make a fuss over details when we have guests, but what about for those who live in our home? I will admit to you that this is something I struggle with. It is easy to get lost in the mundane activities of day-to-day life. We are doing good to just get a meal on the table, never mind setting the table neatly, putting flowers on the table, or lighting candles.

Last week I did go out and cut lots of greenery and flowers and put all over the house to make it homey for us. We weren't expecting any company, just the four of us. (Now I won't mention that my sweet husband sat in the living room where there were 5 vases of stuff that weren't there the day before for probably an hour and didn't notice the first one!)

Here are a few suggestions for showing your hospitality to your family...making your home a haven...

~fresh flowers on the dinner table
~use cloth napkins
~light candles
~leave a note or special treat on each person's pillow
~tell your family how much you enjoy their company

What will you do this week to make your family feel special at home?